So lets start with those codes for this is curious cartophily indeed.
In our original World Tobacco Issues Index this set gets a "P" code and is listed under Godfrey Phillips. But it is not in our original RB.13 devoted to the issues of Godfrey Phillips, nor in our updated World Tobacco Issues Index.
Eventually I find it in the Murray Catalogue of Values listed under Millhoff, and find it in our updated World Tobacco Issues Index there too.
I know that Godfrey Phillips owned Millhoff but can anyone shed a little light on this issue?
And I have seen it listed under D for DeReszke, but that was just the brand - which was named after Jean De Reszke, a Polish opera singer. He had been advised to stop smoking cigars, which he much enjoyed, as they affected his voice, so he had moved over to cigarettes, with only varying success. Then somehow he came in contact with Jacob Millhoff, a Russian cigarette manufacturer, and opera fan, who worked on a tobacco that would be a smoother smoke and not play havoc with the great man`s voice. Reportedly DeReszke was so pleased that he agreed to let Millhoff market the cigarettes under his name, and to appear in the advertising. DeReszke died of bronchial influenza in 1925, almost a decade before these cards were issued. But the company was still, dare I say, cashing in on him by using his name.
The title is also a little odd, for in 1934 a lot of people would have thought of "stars" of the screen, but this is all to do with astrology and the zodiac. It is very well researched as well and even gives the lucky colours, numbers stones, and days.
Venus, showing here, is depicted as Venus de Milo. She also appears on another card, number 30, in the same set. Why she is here this week is that she was the Goddess of fertility, and her sacred month was April, when flowers and trees sprang into bloom, and prepared themselves to make fruit.